Laid up on the couch, Joyce stretched and sighed. Turning toward her forced upon her guest, she said, “So what do you wanna do?”
Nate shrugged. “I don’t care. What do you wanna do?”
“You know we’ve been going back and forth like this for a full two minutes, right?” Joyce laughed.
“That’s because you won’t pick something.”
“Why do I gotta pick something? You have a brain too, don’t you? Or did Tam take that too, before or was it after she stole your balls?”
Sitting up straight now, Nate pushed Joyce’s legs that had been resting on his off. “Why do you always have to say stupid shit like that?”
“Maybe because you keep doing stupid shit that allows me to keep saying it.” Joyce snapped, sitting up too. “The bitch is outside her mind!”
“You know I don’t like when you call her that.”
“Okay,” she relented with a quick roll of her eyes. “So the young lady is outside her mind. But you’ve always had a thing for the crazies.”
“I had a thing for you once too. So what does that say about you?”
“It doesn’t say anything about me. It just says that once upon a time you had good taste…” She said, her voice rising before falling again. “Then you met Amber the hammerhead, Kim who turned out to be a him and the she-devil and lost it.”
“First of all, Amber’s head looked completely normal when she kept her wig on. And Kim…” He just shuddered at the thought. “Let’s just stop talking about Tamela ‘cause it’s just going to make me mad and I want to chill with you and have a peaceful weekend for once.”
“Okay.” She sighed, sinking back into the couch.
He nodded and resumed sitting next to her. “Okay.”
“So what do you wanna do?”
“I don’t care.” He shrugged. “What do you wanna do?”
“This is gonna be a long ass two days.”
"It was only one test, K. The other two came back negative."
"I know,” I sighed, my head in my hands, the same place it had been since I sat down fifteen minutes ago. “But that means that there’s a chance."
"A chance. That’s all it is, is a chance." Coral said. "Just like when you play the lottery there’s a chance you might win. Or when you fly in a plane there’s a chance it might crash. But just because there’s a chance doesn’t mean that for sure it will happen." "And besides, I may not be a math whiz…but as far as I can see, the odds are in your favor. Two out of three tests came back negative."
"So what does that mean? I’m only one-third pregnant?"
Coral sighed. "I dunno, K."
We sat in silence for a while as Coral kept fidgeting and checking her watch. Finally I said, "Look, if you have somewhere else you wanna be…there’s the door."
Laughing and shaking her head, she said, "Damn, girl. You sure know how to make someone feel welcome."
"I’m just saying, if you wanna go…don’t feel forced to stay. I’m not Kenny and I have no handcuffs."
Coral laughed again, laughing so hard that it looked like it hurt. "Kenny was no joke, girl. When he handcuffed me to that damn bed, I was just thinking ‘oh shit, I musta got me a real freak this time.’"
"Oh, but you did get yourself a real freak, with a capital eek." I laughed.
Still laughing, Coral replied, "Stop making me laugh. You know that wasn’t funny! When that fool got that psychotic grin on his face and started talking about how I was gonna make the perfect wife for him and bear his seven children…I thought for sure I was a goner. I swear, my life passed before my eyes and everything…and let me tell you it was a very short film."
Children echoed in my head, bouncing off the inner walls and leaving their crayola marks and stains (you know the type that scream ‘I was here’). I could be pregnant with quadruplets for all I knew. I could have my own little rugrat running around, being the little energizer energy ball that I was as a child.
For instant headache, just add in little versions of me and Justin on loose…getting into anything and everything. My momma’s old words came back to haunt me at the moment: “Just wait till you have kids.” It was the same thing her mother had said to her after every time she’d gotten through working her last nerve. And now it could possibly my time to get to say that tired line to the next nerve racking generation.
Just as my mood began to take a dip into a deep pre-motherhood depression, an image of Justin rolling around on the ground playing with two little rugrats lodged itself in my head.
For instant happiness, just add Justin and my wonderful imaginary family.
Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad.
"Hey, whatchu thinkin' about?" Coral asked, waving a hand in front of my face. I must have been staring off into space…I do that a lot.
"Do you think I’d be a good mother?"
"That’s what had the faraway dreamy/horrified look in your eyes? I told you, chances are that you aren’t even pregnant…so don’t even worry about it."
"It was just a question." When I still hadn’t gotten an answer, I said, "You know what goes nice with a question?…an answer."
Coral smiled. "Okay smartass. You want an answer? Alright, here’s your answer…" Coral paused, just to make me wait…cause she’s mean like that. "You’re an impatient, moody, quick-tempered, sarcastic, anti-people person. But you’re also the one of the most caring, nuturing, silly, playful, understanding, open-minded, easy to talk, loving people I’ve ever met. You’re great with kids, I don’t why, but they love you…instantly. It’s like you give out this vibe that says ‘you can trust me,’ and people fall for it every time. So to give you an answer to your question…I think that your kids, whenever you happen to be blessed with them, are gonna be some very lucky kids…cause not everyone lucks out to have such a wonderful mother as I have faith that you will be."
I didn’t say anything for a long while, blinking back tears is all I could manage to do. Why did it seem like no matter whether I was happy, sad, or mad…tears are always falling?
I’m not a cryer…nope, nah-uh, that ain’t me. So don’t let these few tears that happen to slip out lead you to believe I’ve become a sap or something. I do have a rep to maintain after all.
"Thanks," I managed to whisper; the shock of her kind words not completely worn off. Not that kind words were foreign to her lips, but I…I dunno, it just meant a lot to hear her say that.
“Hey, let’s go out. I’m tired of being coped up in this tiny ass apartment.”
“Go where?”
“I dunno. I feel outdoorsy, so let’s go to the beach or a park.” She said, standing up and making moves to the door. “Yeah, let’s go to the park. I feel like swinging.”
“I’m twenty-two.”
“You’ve never too old to swing.” She said, grinning.
“Why are you so happy?”
“Why are you so determined to sit around in the darkness feeling all gloom and doom just because you might possibly be pregnant?” She countered, pulling me up from where I was slumped over on the couch. “C’mon,” She whined. “Let’s go. I wanna swing.”
“Is this what it’s gonna be like?” I frowned.
She grinned. “Only so much better because it’ll be your crumb snatcher’s whine saying it.”
Twenty minutes later I found myself rocking back and forth, surrounded by whiners, gigglers, and droolers.
“This is nice.” Coral said, smiling at me as she pumped her legs harder to get higher on her swing.
Squinting up into the sun’s ray, I stared at the large clouds overhead. “It looks like it’s gonna rain.”
Slowing down long enough to hit me in the arm, she rolled her eyes and sighed. “It’s a nice day.”
“Humph,” was all I could think to say that wasn’t completely negative.
But it was a nice day though. The sun was shining and felt nice and warm against my skin, the clouds was white puffy like I liked them, but everywhere I looked there were little remainders of the one thing I wasn’t ready to fully consider, scurrying around tagging each other with big gapped toothed Kool-Aid grins.
“Aww, aren’t they just adorable?” Coral cooed, pointing out twins girls with matching outfits playing hop-scotch.
I glanced over that way long enough to see bouncing pigtails, which made me suddenly crave pork chops. Or maybe some bacon. I don’t even like bacon, but I’d love to have it right about now.
Shit, I needed to make an appointment with my doctor as soon as possible.
Pushing my brain past thoughts of pigs in blankets and blood tests, I said, “Why did you bring me here?”
She shrugged, her eyes still watching all the kids as they bopped around us hopped up on sugar. “I told you, I wanted to swing.”
“And of all the days to get in touch with your inner child, you just had to pick today?”
She didn’t answer for a long moment as her swing slowed down and she continued to look ahead, avoiding my eyes. “I want what they have.”
Frowning, I said, “What, a snotty nose and scraped knees?”
“Not them, grumpy.” She laughed. “Their mothers.”
“You’re not dating a married man again, are you? Cause after last time you did that you started calling their house at all hours of the night, harassing the poor woman until she finally threatened to get a restraining order on you…”
“No, no, no….” She frowned, shaking off my words. “No, hell no, it’s not that. I just want the family life, you know? Raise my lil’ munchins with my husband in a nice house out in the suburbs, instead of living alone and single in an apartment building that won’t even allow me to become the cat lady on the block if I wanted to.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“K!” she snapped, hitting me in the arm again. “What I’m trying to say is, I brought you here hoping that you’d see all these other families and get to realizing that being pregnant isn’t the worst thing that could happen to you.”
I thought about what she said, looked around again at the smiling kids and the mothers chatting together with little ones cradled carefully in their arms. Thought about all the pregnant celebrities that were grinning and rubbing their swollen bellies proudly on the cover of magazines and at this and that award show lately”seemed like everybody was pregnant.
But I was never one to jump off bridges just because everyone else was doing it and I didn’t like the idea of having not choice but to jump.
“I never said it was like having AIDS or something horrible like that, I just…” I sighed, shaking my head, not knowing how to translate my fears into understandable words. “I’m not ready for the pitter patter of little feet around the house.”
“Well they don’t pop out walking.” She laughed.
Rolling my eyes, I sighed and stood up. “You don’t get it and I don’t know how to explain. Let’s go.”
“No, I get it.” She said, standing up to her full 5’7” and towering over my mere 5’2”. “I believe me, I get it, girl.” She said, pulling me into a hug. “And I’m here for you if you need anything, whether it’s picking out baby clothes or names or just simply waiting for the call from the doctor after you get official real deal test and I mean that shit, for real. Don’t hesitate to call me.” She said, letting go and smiling at me. “But if I don’t pick up right away…I might just be a little tied up at the moment.”
Laughing, I shook my head at her. Still the same old Coral. “You need to stay away from those Kennys.”
I was standing in the kitchen fixing myself something to eat, when out of nowhere I felt two hands come up behind me and over my eyes, as a husky lusty voice said, "Guess who?"
"Raul? Is that you? I told you not to come around here anymore…Justin isn’t as stupid as he looks, he might find out."
"Ha ha, very funny." Justin said, watching as I turned to face him with an innocent smile plastered on my face. I was so happy to see him and I didn’t know why.
"Too bad I wasn’t joking."
"You betta be joking." Justin said, pulling me close to him. He kissed my forehead and gave me the Eskimo kisses that I loved so much. "I don’t want to have to tell our grandchildren someday how I had to hide out from the cops after I laid the smack down on some guy named Raul."
Grandchildren? Suddenly my throat felt tight. Trying to play off my worries, I said, "Grandchildren? You’re getting a little ahead of yourself there."
"Why? I know it’s only a matter of time before we settle down and you give me five little Timberlakes." He said grinning at me, with his hand flat on my stomach.
He was joking, right? It sounded like he was joking. I definitely didn’t like the turn this conversation had taken. "Five?" I frowned, shrugging out of his warm embrace.
He shrugged, with a grin that spoke of his certainty about the future. Our future. Together. "Okay, four."
"Four?"
"Alright…how about three?"
"How about I pretend that you haven’t just lost your mind, and go upstairs and go to sleep?"
Smiling, Justin said, "Fine with me, getting you upstairs and in bed was all I’ve been thinking about since I got back home."
Home. Justin’s house had really started to feel like home to me. I’d even started saying I gotta go back home when I left it, like it was my house. We’d been living together for three going on four weeks and somewhere during that time I’d gotten used to him”gotten used to being with him everyday. And now, he was talking about plans for a future for us that I’d been questioning for the longest time, but now after hearing how confident he was…
Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. I may possibly be pregnant and I may not be 100% ready for motherhood, but I’m not going to have to do this alone. I have Justin. Justin who very possibly could be a father.
Shit, I gotta tell him.
